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Visa U.S.A. says spending on its cards over the past weekend was the strongest yet seen this holiday shopping season, exceeding spending during the so-called Black Friday weekend after Thanksgiving by 15%. Indeed, Black Friday itself now ranks third in Visa spending, behind the volume reached this past Friday and Saturday. Volume on Black Friday was $4.14 billion, while Friday's spending hit $4.25 billion and Saturday's reached $4.16 billion. Visa, which is releasing weekly card statistics during the Nov. 1 to Jan. 3 period, also says spending last week, $26.7 billion, exceeded that of the same week a year ago by 16%. Visa's volume in the e-commerce channel, meanwhile, was $2.72 billion last week, just over 10% of total Visa volume for the week and an increase of nearly one-third over the same week in 2003. E-commerce transactions jumped 26% for Visa over the year-ago week, totaling 33.7 million. A separate study release last week by CyberSource Corp., a transaction gateway for e-commerce merchants, predicted that transaction volume for the holiday season would peak tomorrow, Dec. 14 (Digital Transactions News, Dec. 10).
